I wondered why they decided to merge the servers yet again instead of doing some kind of cross server deal...perhaps it is a financial decision, perhaps they lacked the expertise to enable cross server play.

It is a shame, because cross server, IMO, would be a big boost to the game.

1) They've said they can't do cross-server.

2) The consolidated into one data center to run the two remaining servers. That's a major cost cutting move. They couldn't do that without merging. They obviously wanted to reduce bandwidth charges and rack rental costs.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rion_Starkiller

Devs gambled everything on GC RNG, but they didn't even get green loot.

Yes, they said that, but it's intentionally misleading and isn't the whole truth. They actually can implement cross-server queues. It's not technologically impossible. Trion did it with RIFTS -after- their game was already released, so we know it's possible to do after the fact. The real truth is that BW/EA doesn't want to spend the money to do it, likely because they feel it's cost prohibitive. That's a completely different issue, and very short-sighted thinking that has caused a lot of problems for this game and puts the longevity of the game at risk.

Population issues are not exclusive to this game. Every MMO suffers attrition. Real life happens, after all. But dwindling populations on isolated servers feeds on itself. As populations decrease, queue times go up as there's fewer people to do stuff with. Then more players become bored and/or frustrated, and they leave the game too. As the population continues to decline, more players leave, and so on. They implemented the Bolster system to combat population issues, which is far from perfect, cumbersome, and barely addresses the symptoms of a greater problem.

Finally, they are forced to do server merges when populations become critical, which has its own issues. While it does temporarily reinvigorate the game, eventually over time we'll be right back in the same situation we were in right before server merges became necessary.

Again, for all these reasons, cross-server queues are the key to population stability, more fair/fun WZs/FPs due to the ability to utilize matchmaking, and ultimately greater game longevity. It is literally the single most important feature that is absent from this game.

Over at MassivelyOp they just did an article on how to turn SWTOR round.

But all the ideas in the world are a waste of time if no one at EA/BW give a damn about the game or want to make it better. Whatever their plan for the game is, it does not seem to be make it a better experience for either existing, returning or new players.

Aside from attacking negative posts, even those supporting the state of the game have little that is positive to say about anything recently done by the development team. While the critical posts go ignored leading people to become more frustrated by what seems to be ignorance of the issues or any plan to fix them. Such as despite almost 2 years of being told that they understand how important companions are there has been no explanation why only 3 were returned in all of 2017. Or what the reason for so very little content in 2017 was, we all assume that its because the development team is 4 people strong and they spend their time reskining stuff for the CM. So as people watch their friends and guilds move on they become more and more cynical and tired of running the same dated content with nothing from the dev team to make it look like anything will improve.

Yes, they said that, but it's intentionally misleading and isn't the whole truth. They actually can implement cross-server queues. It's not technologically impossible. Trion did it with RIFTS -after- their game was already released, so we know it's possible to do after the fact. The real truth is that BW/EA doesn't want to spend the money to do it, likely because they feel it's cost prohibitive. That's a completely different issue, and very short-sighted thinking that has caused a lot of problems for this game and puts the longevity of the game at risk.

Population issues are not exclusive to this game. Every MMO suffers attrition. Real life happens, after all. But dwindling populations on isolated servers feeds on itself. As populations decrease, queue times go up as there's fewer people to do stuff with. Then more players become bored and/or frustrated, and they leave the game too. As the population continues to decline, more players leave, and so on. They implemented the Bolster system to combat population issues, which is far from perfect, cumbersome, and barely addresses the symptoms of a greater problem.

Finally, they are forced to do server merges when populations become critical, which has its own issues. While it does temporarily reinvigorate the game, eventually over time we'll be right back in the same situation we were in right before server merges became necessary.

Again, for all these reasons, cross-server queues are the key to population stability, more fair/fun WZs/FPs due to the ability to utilize matchmaking, and ultimately greater game longevity. It is literally the single most important feature that is absent from this game.

The F2P system is the biggest thing holding this game back. They need to open up all area's of the game. The majority of players do not need to be subs. Subs are people who are pulled from a pool of players, the bigger the pool, the larger the subs. Driving people away by locking the fun aspects of the game behind subbing is slowly making the pool smaller and smaller.

The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.

The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.